'Gender Stereotyping in Media Advertisements Essay\r'

'The tre handsdous influence of the media as an important cultural vehicle on the preservation and backing of existing societal norms, beliefs, and behaviors has been under increasing scrutiny from academics, scholars, and feminists in an attempt to understand the code and linguistic process within which the media operates and its impacts on various audiences.\r\n(Dines, Humez, Hoynes, & adenylic acid; Croteau, 2003; Silverstein, Perdue, &type A; Kelly, 1986; Gamble 1997) Lately, there has been a growing concern everyplace the contribution of the media in helping to maintain the long-standing unlikeness surrounded by sexes in the way that it continues to fer ment gender stereotypes overtly as in the case of television programming, to the subliminal messages conveyed by result advertisements, music videos, and opposite forms of ocular entertainment which now implicate vogue spreads and magazines.\r\n(Dines, Humez, Hoynes, & Croteau: 336; Gamble 272) This concern comes amidst allegations that the media, unique(predicate)ally product advertisements, is somehow responsible for the proliferation and reinforcement of unhealthy attitudes and biases against women and women’s bodies, for instance, in garble the definition of physical attractiveness to that of ‘ exiguity’(Silverstein, Perdue, & Kelly: 519; Gamble 272) and of self-worth to being ‘jolly’ or desired by the male (Dines, Humez, Hoynes, & Croteau: 247).\r\nIn its many forms, product advertisements, through lifelike, in-text, and non-graphic representation, argon guilty of exploiting the everyday societal concepts of femininity and masculinity in their sole objective of increasing choose for the products which translates to increased profit margins. (Wiles, Wiles, & Tjerlund: 35) ingathering advertisements ar also a nark out for special concern in that they are easily accessible and are scantily constrained by censorship and other legislat ion.\r\nThe fact that they are ubiquitous in almost all forms of mediaâ€be it print, broadcast, video, and the internetâ€make them doubly powerful in molding, or warping, the minds of individuals young and old. Dines, Humez, Hoynes, & Croteau (2003) lodge out, for instance, how â€Å"elements of the pornographic can be primed(p) in advertisements,” (p. 336) referring not only to graphic sexual acts or innuendos but to specific representations of female and male constructs and of power relationships between and within these constructs that are seen in advertisements.\r\nIt is argued that masculinity and femininity are always constructed in the â€Å"conventional” way: that the male is â€Å"bigger, stronger, and has the capacity to hurt the women” (Dines, et. al. 336) or in a position of greater power over the women, who are always imageed or associated with the weak, delicate, and supine business office. (Gamble 272) In the same manner, women ar e often portrayed as substandard to men through the use of the pursuance graphic illustrations: â€Å"women appear shorter; men inform women; women appear to be drifting in deep thought while men?\r\nEyes are focused on purpose; and women appear helpless. ”(Wiles, Wiles, & Tjerlund, 36) Indeed, one motif not look further than the hot perfume advertisement to see how men and women are portrayed as predator and prey, respectively, signifying the women’s degraded position in the gender stratification. More notable is the plain absence of ‘others’ in the gender spectrum which may not be totally accepted by societal standards: bisexuals, lesbians, and gays, who barely make it to product advertisements except for those products specifically intend for their market.\r\nFurthermore, results of Wiles, Wiles, & Tjerlund’s (1995) study of the act of women in magazines in three countries which include the United States, the Netherlands, and S weden supported the contention that â€Å"role portrayals presented in magazine advertising depict cultural biases and stereotypes” which tended to portray men in active roles and women as men’s sexual objects or in decorative, passive positions.\r\nIf art imitates life and culture, this only goes to show up the extent to which gender inequality body as much a take exception to overcome in real, reel, and the simulated universe of discourse of advertising.\r\nWorks Cited:\r\nDines, G. , Humez, J. M. M. , Hoynes, D. W. , & D. Croteau. Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text Reader. Sage Publications, 2003. Gamble, T. K. & M. W. Gamble, â€Å"Gender and Non-verbal Language. ” Contacts: Communicating Interpersonally. Boston, M. A. : Allyn and Bacon, 1997.\r\n'